Digital Commons Network^™

Highlighting Teacher Voices: Discussions On Race And Racism In The Elementary Classroom, Carrie Lynn Buckner

Doctoral Dissertations

Throughout my career in education, I have observed that teachers are challenged by engaging in discussions involving race and racism. This study seeks to understand teachers’ feelings further when discussing race and racism in the elementary classroom by answering the research question: How do elementary teachers experience race and racism in their schools and classrooms?

This qualitative, critical narrative inquiry dissertation focused on three participant interviews with public-school elementary teachers in Tennessee. The data generated from these interviews informed narratives and were then analyzed through the lens of Critical Race Theory. This was followed by In Vivo and structural coding …

Science Education To The Rescue? Assessing The Relationship Between Scientific Literacy And Carbon Emissions, Anthony Schmidt

Doctoral Dissertations

Human activities have radically changed the climate, negatively impacting all life on earth. The technical means to address this climate crisis exist, but there are major social and political hurdles that stand in the way. Education has been touted as one possible means for helping to move forward necessary action on climate change. A hybrid model of planned behavior and human capital helps explain how education can affect climate change. The current dissertation sought to assess what relationship may exist between changes in per capita carbon emissions and science education as measured by the Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA). …

Alt-Education: Gender, Language, And Education Across The Right, Catherine Tebaldi

Doctoral Dissertations

I explore the ideologies of gender, language and education in conservative, Christian Nationalist, and White nationalist mothers groups. I draw on my own family history, as well as on two years of blended ethnographic research in online right wing communities and one year of fieldwork in New Orleans, Louisiana, to look at homeschooling, online schools, and public teachers’ social, linguistic, and educational practices -- what I call Alt-Education. Alt-education is of course a play on alt-right, and refers to the far-right ideology; but it also refers to an alternative to mainstream education, and to education through a broader range of …